Abstract
In his famous lectures on the theory of speech acts, delivered at Harvard in 1955, as well as in his related publications, John L. Austin frequently applies morbid, zoological examples. This paper argues that animals appear not only as mute witnesses to linguistic mishaps on Austin’s scenes; rather, animal references shed an ambiguous light on the conditions of valid linguistic actions. Austin’s obsession with animals seems to contribute to his understanding of conventional performativity and unfolds the paradoxical issues and border zones of so called infelicities. Analysing some of Austin’s references and examples (focusing on the case of baptizing penguins from one of the literary allusions in How to Do Things with Words), the paper concludes with the argument that the rigid distinction between humans and animals serves as one of the core conventional presuppositions of the concept of valid speech acts, revealing the contradictory nature of Austin’s ethical and linguistic premises.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
On Austin’s use of literary quotations, undisclosed or not, see Ricks 1992.
- 2.
“The characteristic intended effect of meaning is understanding, but understanding is not the sort of effect that is included in Grice’s examples of effects. It is not a perlocutionary effect.” (Searle 1969: 47).
- 3.
For further similar examples in Austin see Ricks 1992: 303–304.
- 4.
Austin cites line 612 from the tragedy (“ἡ γλῶσσ' ὀμώμοχ', ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος”; in his own “translation”: ‘my tongue swore to, but my heart [or mind or other backstage artiste] did not’) while articulating his arguments against the assumption that speech acts might be considered as representations of some “inward and spiritual act.”.
- 5.
The considerations of Kleist show, by the way, that such orators must at last witness their own strangeness or otherness in the thoughts and intentions they finally come to find (see on this Török 2015: 39–43).
References
Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon.
Austin, John L. 1970a. A Plea for Excuses. In Philosophical Papers, 175–204. Oxford: Clarendon.
Austin, John L. 1970b. Three Ways of Spilling Ink. In Philosophical Papers, 272–287.
Derrida, Jacques. 1988. Limited Inc. Evanston: Northwestern UP.
France, Anatole. 2016. Penguin Island. Mineola: Dover.
France, Anatole. 1994. L’Île des Pingouins. In Oeuvres, vol. 4, 1–248. Paris: Gallimard.
Kleist, Heinrich von. 1951. On the Gradual Construction of Thoughts During Speech. German Life and Letters 5(1): 42–46.
Ricks, Christopher. 1992. Austin’s Swink. University of Toronto Quarterly 61: 297–315.
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Török, Ervin. 2015. Elmozdult képek [Moved Images]. Budapest: Ráció.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kulcsár-Szabó, Z. (2020). Austin’s Animals. In: Kulcsár-Szabó, Z., Lénárt, T., Simon, A., Végső, R. (eds) Life After Literature. Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33738-4_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33738-4_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-33737-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-33738-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)